


it's coming out backwards

by banksoflochlomond



Series: it's just the way things are in my head [2]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Eddie doesn't die, Fix-It, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Self-Hatred, even on here, hi i wrote this in four hours, thanks for pointing that out, that i should work on, the fuck are you talking about, yes i do have other stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-19 16:43:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20660432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/banksoflochlomond/pseuds/banksoflochlomond
Summary: The problem is that he’s known it his entire life. Or at least as long as Eddie started sputtering after Richie’s “your mom” jokes. As long as Eddie, with his small delicate fucking body, muscled up to him and told Richie he was gonna get herpes from licking the swingset. As long as Richie’s known his button nose, still nice as shit after twenty-seven fucking years.But Richie’s never said it out loud. Never let himself feel it, except when he had to. Maybe that’s why Richie was so good at forgetting Derry. He never wanted to remember. Never wanted to deal with the albatross he’d pretty much surgically attached to his back.He’s got to, though. Say it out loud. Say it to Eddie.(Or, Eddie survives. The road for Richie isn't any easier, though.)





	it's coming out backwards

Richie doesn’t know how to breathe.

He forgot how to. He must have, because every breath he tries to take in now is sharp, and pinched, and too fast and just  _ wrong _ . Someone must have ripped a hole through the bottom of his lungs, because there’s an odd sucking feeling right at the bottom of his ribcage that’s taking all of his broken breaths away, that’s making it even worse considering the fact that he fucking  _ forgot  _ how to fucking  _ breathe. _ Give him a fucking break, Jesus  _ Christ. _

Someone lowers him into a chair, shoves his head between his knees, is mumbling something to him that he can’t hear, and he claws his hand upward, gripping at his ratty undershirt to feel for the hole in his lungs, right in between where his ribs meet, but of course there’s not anything. There wouldn’t be anything. He wasn’t the one who’d gotten speared with a spider limb--blood oozing out, the sickening, audbile crunch of bones being split apart inside his chest, the dumb fucking smile washing away too slowly, replaced by a low scream--

It isn’t Richie’s blood on his hands.

Richie gasps in again, trying to latch onto any kind of air, but it’s wet now, thick and catching in his throat. Someone rubs his back in circles and says, “Oh, Richie,” and pulls him closer, wrapping his torso in a loose hug.

Richie shakes his head, and with it he feels his glasses slip off his face. They clatter against the hard plastic chair he’s in, and then slide across a white linoleum floor. There’s still clots of blood on the frames, and the spider web crack across one of the lenses.

Without his glasses, everything’s the slightest bit blurrier. Just out of focus. A risk, probably.

Eddie was a Risk Analyst.

Richie’s breath picks up even more and someone sighs, maybe, pulls him into a deeper hug. Rubs more circles into Richie’s back, like that’ll fix this. Like it’ll fix Richie, fix Eddie, fix Stan--

There’s a fucking hole in Richie’s chest, though, and they couldn’t see that--they couldn’t fucking  _ see  _ that, and it’s not even the worst part about all of this--and Richie just needs to help Eddie, but he can’t--can’t even do one thing right, say one thing right--can’t even  _ breathe  _ properly--

***

They ended up giving Richie a tranquilizer.

Richie wakes up attached to an IV, feeling slower. Smaller. He stares at the popcorn ceiling for a while, trying to ignore the deep pool he can feel building up in his chest. Like the hole had turned into a well, aching and shadowed and flowing through all his bones without permission.

“Rich?” 

Richie turns his head to find Bill, on the edge of a horrible, patched vinyl chair.

“How’s Eddie?” Richie asks immediately.

“Stable condition,” Bill says. “They just told Mike. No one’s allowed to visit yet.”

“How long have I--?”

“Five hours,” Bill says. He reaches forward and takes Richie’s hand. An uncharacteristic thing. Richie remembers Bill as gentle, kind. But hardened somehow. He’d only ever reached out to Bev, never to anyone else. Especially not after Bev left and never wrote again.

“Huh,” Richie says out loud.

“What?” Bill asks.

“I literally just realized why no one ever wrote or called after they left,” Richie says. “Bev. Ben, when he moved junior year. I just thought they--”

“Oh,” Bill says. Then,  _ “Oh.” _

“Yeah,” Richie says.

“I just thought they--that…”

“Me too,” Richie says quietly. Mike must’ve been devastated, when everyone else left. Before he figured out what was going on. He must’ve been--

And Eddie, too, Richie suddenly realizes. It washes over him, cold and angry. “Shit, Eddie,” Richie says. “His  _ fucking mother. _ I--I promised I’d write, that I’d annoy him with phone calls every day, and I couldn’t--I didn’t--how long was he here before he left? Years? And I just--”

“It’s not your fault, Rich--”

“Of course it’s  _ my fucking fault, _ if I’d tried harder--he probably thought I hated him, or that I didn’t care,  _ fuck... _ if I’d gotten him to leave with me, maybe I’d--”

_ Maybe I’d still have him. Maybe things would’ve been different. Maybe I’d have more time with him. If I’d only moved faster, if I’d tried harder, if I didn’t get stuck in the deadlights-- _

“Richie,” Bill says sharply.

“Fuck,” Richie says, wiping a palm over his face. He feels oddly weighed down. Probably the tranquilizer, literally fighting to keep him from going into a tailspin.

“It’s. Not. Your. Fault,” Bill says. “Trust me. I know better than anyone.”

“That’s fucking stupid,” Richie says. “Fucking--bullshit, if I could’ve done  _ something-- _ ”

_ “Hey, _ ” Bill barks out again, and Richie thinks, in the back of his mind, that Bill hasn’t stuttered at all since Richie woke up. “Eddie’s in a stable condition.”

“Yeah, well, death’s also a fucking stable condition,” Richie snaps. “Ask Stan.”

Bill grips onto Richie’s hand harder, white-knuckled. Determined. “Eddie’s gonna be okay,” Bill says. “You know it. I know you do.”

“But what if he isn’t,” Richie says. It’s way more quiet, way more timid than he wants to be. He can’t look at Bill. Richie clears his throat, and uses his free hand to play with the stitching on his hospital sheet.

“He will be,” Bill says. “Rich. Look at me.”

Richie looks up. He realizes he’s still not wearing his glasses.

Bill’s face is softer when it’s blurry. Bill can’t see all the lines as much. He looks younger than he should.

“Stop grieving someone who’s still here,” Bill says gently. “You’ll be okay, and he will be, too.”

Richie takes in a deep breath. Not that he really needs to. His heartbeat is as steady as a drum. Fucking wonders of modern medicine.

“Okay,” Richie says. “Okay.”

***

Richie’s discharged two hours later, because there’s nothing else to be done for a fucking panic attack. It's not like getting speared in the fucking chest.

The doctor asks him some basic questions. If there was a history of panic attacks (of course), whether he takes medication (yeah), if there was any other mental health concern (every fucking standup was depressed, why would Richie be any different?). 

The doctor asked if Richie wanted Bill to leave the room, but Richie let Bill stay, mostly because of the fierce look in his eye. All of them are still dirty and torn up as shit, but no one really asked any questions. Probably a bit afraid to. Bill pulls off the rugged look frustratingly well. Richie just looks homeless.

Richie doesn’t look over at Bill as he answers the questions. Keeps his voice steady, like a dare. So fucking what if his mind’s a goddamn mess. He’s allowed that. But Bill keeps his hand steady on Richie’s, never once moving or pulling away. He’s silent, and he’s there, and Richie doesn’t know what to make of that.

(Eddie probably would’ve fucking made a bajillion comments. Probably would’ve mocked Richie for having so much messed up shit, and then Richie could rib Eddie for his fucking OCD and whale of a mother, and Richie would’ve forgotten that the doctor was even in the room.)

(Except. Eddie’s in another ward of the hospital. With internal bleeding. Probably seconds from death. Because he saved Richie, and Richie might be the fucking cause of Eddie's death, now.)

The doctor eventually gives Richie the all-clear, and Bill steps outside for a moment as Richie gets dressed. Then, they’re walking down the hospital corridor, but Richie needs to take a left toward the waiting room and Bill’s leading him straight ahead.

“But--Eddie,” Richie says, turning back around. Bill’s hand grabs at Richie’s shoulder, though, and wheels him back around.

“Eddie’s not waking up any time soon,” Bill says. “And we both still look like shit. Everyone’s gone ahead to the hotel, and we’re meeting them there.”

His voice is steely. It’s not up for debate, and Richie knows this.

“I’m an adult, and I can make my own decisions,” Richie tries, anyway.

“Not right now, you can’t,” Bill says. At least he has the decency to sound apologetic. “Come on.”

Richie sags down a bit. Thinks about Eddie’s face when he got speared. The smile slowly vanishing, blood turning everything red. Turning the both of them red.

“Okay,” Richie says. “Fuck--okay.”

***

Everyone is gentle with him.

No one says much, except to say their certainty about how Eddie’ll get better. Ben wraps his arm around Richie’s shoulders whenever they run into each other, and he asks how Richie’s doing like he needs to know the answer. Mike finds a shitty optometrist for Richie and gets him a pair of backup glasses. Bill forces Richie to go to sleep, forces Richie to leave the hospital every night to shower and get back to the hotel. He even tries to manage Richie’s alcohol intake, but no one’s ever fucking managed that before.

The days pass in a blur. All Richie wants to do is go to Eddie, and when he can’t, he just wants to drink so that he can forget that Eddie ever existed. So he can pretend that everything he’s feeling isn’t making him sick. He used to be so fucking--calm about everything, as calm as Richie can be. Just--nothing really mattered, and that was good. Ever since coming back to Derry, it feels like everything’s screaming at him. Richie doesn’t fucking know what’s gonna happen between one breath and the next, and that means that every breath is  _ so fucking important, _ and he just--

He can’t think about it. Shit.

Beverly’s the only one who treats him normally. Not that the gentleness is a bad thing--it’s not, it’s probably even what Richie needs. If everyone wanted him to act normally, Richie thinks he would shatter. Just fucking--fall apart.

Bev drinks with him at night, and smokes with him in the morning. She doesn’t say much--she never has, when it’s just Richie and Bev. Like she’s okay to let everything sit, even though it sits so heavy between them.

Richie drinks until he thinks he can talk, and when he does, it’s about inane things. The weather, his latest standup special, how dumb Eddie looked on the first day of high school when Eddie showed up with his fanny pack.

And then, one night, he goes a bit too over the edge. Maybe Bill wasn’t monitoring his drinks correctly or something, but. It hits him hard, in the chest, and he has to say, “Pennywise’s first attack this year was against a gay couple.”

Bev looks up from her gin and tonic.

“I saw Mike’s book today, in the waiting room,” Richie says. “Where he keeps all his notes. I guess he was updating shit--I don’t know why, maybe he thinks--well, we killed It, so it doesn’t matter. But, um. He had a section on this new twenty-seven year cycle, you know? And I looked at it. It was a gay couple. Been together two years. A homophobic attack, but there was a sighting by the surviving boyfriend about a clown.”

“Okay,” Bev says.

Richie knocks back another drink. He doesn’t wanna fucking talk, but the words are stuck so far up his throat he needs to get them out. “Do you think It created hatred and fear, or It just used them? It used the things we were scared of. Do you think that would’ve happened to them, if It hadn’t been around?”

“Oh,” Bev says. “I don’t know. I’m not sure.”

“It chose that boy because of Bill,” Richie says. He stares at the bar in front of him, at the wall. Not at Bev. “It chose Henry Bowers because we were scared of him. And I can’t help but think that. That that hatred, that fear--and fucking, his name was Adrian Mellon, and I just. Maybe I created all of that. Maybe It killed Adrian Mellon because of--fuck. Shit.”

Richie presses his head against the sticky bar. “Never mind,” Richie says. He has the absurd idea to trace out an “R” and an “E” on the table in front of him. But he doesn’t. Because he’s a fucking man.

“Richie,” Bev says. Measured. Careful. “You can talk to me.”

“I never stop talking,” Richie says. “That’s kind of my thing. Trashmouth, you fucking know?”

_ “Richie,” _ Bev says.

“I need another fucking drink,” Richie says, and stumbles up from his barstool. “You do, too. Did I ever tell you about that time I went day drinking with Dave Chappelle?”

***

The doctors say that Eddie will pull through.

It’s been five days. Very touch-and-go. But the blood transfusions worked, and the internal bleeding was stymied, and Eddie will be okay.

Everyone’s happy, because of course they are. Their friend is gonna pull through. They don’t have to bury another friend.

Richie feels it like a tourniquet. Sharp, bitter relief. No more blood loss, but the endangerment of a heavy limb. A heavy, heavy limb he’s been pulling around for years.

Bev offers to grab more coffees, and Ben wraps an arm around Richie like he has for the past five days, but Richie stands up, clearing his throat. “I’ve got something I gotta do,” Richie says, vaguely.

Bill frowns, and Mike says, “Don’t you wanna--” but Bev says, “Of course, take as long as you need,” and throws Richie her keys, because no one’s been trusting Richie to drive over the past few days.

“Thanks,” Richie says. Then, weakly, “I’m off to go fuck Eddie’s mom in celebration.”

It’s like sunlight breaks across Bill’s face, with how wide his smile grows.

***

Richie picks up a pocket knife from the gas station, and drives the longest possible route to the kissing bridge. He takes at least twelve backroads, and circles near the quarry twice.

The problem is that he’s known it his entire life. Or at least as long as Eddie started sputtering after Richie’s “your mom” jokes. As long as Eddie, with his small delicate fucking body, muscled up to him and told Richie he was gonna get herpes from licking the swingset. As long as Richie’s known his button nose, still nice as shit after twenty-seven fucking years.

But Richie’s never said it out loud. Never let himself feel it, except when he had to. Maybe that’s why Richie was so good at forgetting Derry. He never wanted to remember. Never wanted to deal with the albatross he’d pretty much surgically attached to his back.

He’s got to, though. Say it out loud. Say it to Eddie. 

Richie can’t live, knowing that he’s got this  _ thing  _ separating him from Eddie. Him from the rest of the world, really. Richie knows what it’s like to be the only person in the world. Knows the intense, sucking shadow of loneliness. Calls it his best friend.

All because Richie’s in love with his real best friend.

Shit. Fuck.

Richie pulls over right before the bridge. Parks Bev’s Beamer and walks to the shitty bridge with poorly carved initials spattered across the rotting fencing.

Richie’s _R + E_ is faded as shit now. Because Richie’s old as fuck. 

Richie snaps open the pocket knife, traces the crude carving, making it deeper. Pushing it back open, like a wound. Like a memory.

“Shit,” Richie says, out loud this time. “I’m gay as fuck.”

***

Eddie doesn’t wake up that day. It would have made narrative sense. Probably how Bill would’ve framed it in one of his books. They were really good, even if the endings were the worst parts.

Richie doesn’t stop drinking, either. Doesn’t stop smoking. His friends ask him questions, and sometimes he answers, but he’s not. He can’t tell them.

Not before Eddie.

And there’s a small, gnawing part of him. The Adrian Mellon part, really. Where Richie’s just--where he knows, kind of, how his friends will react. Their disappointment maybe, why he didn’t tell them. And Eddie’s disgusted by gay people, probably. It would fit in with his fucking polos, and his addiction to cleanliness. Gay doesn’t fit in with the sterile lifestyle. 

Richie doesn’t, either.

“Stop trying to give yourself alcohol poisoning,” Ben says, wrapping an arm around Richie as he pulls away Richie’s beer.

“I’m an adult,” Richie says.

“You keep saying that,” Ben says lightly. “I keep lacking evidence for it.”

“Fuck off,” Richie says.

“I thought,” Ben says, and then pauses. His face twists up.

“That I’d be happy Eddie’s gonna be okay?” Richie finishes for Ben.

“Well,” Ben says. “Yes.”

“I am,” Richie says. “I really--I really am, I just.” He sucks in a deep breath. 

“What?” Ben asks.

“I’ve got something,” Richie says. “That I need to tell Eddie, and I just--it’s not gonna go well, I know it’s not, but I’ve gotta say it before I get back to my sad fucking life, so I just--”

“Hey,” Ben says, and grabs both of Richie’s shoulders, this time. Progress. “What do you need to say?”

Richie only shakes his head. He keeps trying to dodge eye contact, but Ben’s eyes are everywhere, meeting Richie at every turn. 

Richie can’t say it. Not before Eddie, maybe not at all--but definitely not before Eddie. “When Eddie wakes up,” Richie says. “Eddie first.”

Ben’s face shifts. His mouth twitches upward, lips become less pursed. There’s no other visible change, but somehow, Richie feels warmer, now. “Well,” Ben says, “If it’s what I think it is--I think you’ll be okay, Rich. I do.”

“Okay,” Richie says. Then, “Wait, what do you think I’m gonna say?”

Ben shakes his head, and shakes Richie’s beer bottle. “I’m pouring this out, and you’re going to bed,” he says.

“Fuck you, your girlfriend lets me drink with her,” Richie says.

“You gotta be up bright and early for Eddie tomorrow,” Ben says. “Go to sleep.”

“I’m not fucking six, I think I’m older than you.”

“Now,” Ben says.

“What--fine, but only because you’re ridiculous, not because I’m listening to you.”

“Sure.”

“I’m not yielding! I’m just quitting for today.”

“And if there’s any alcohol in your room, I’m confiscating it.”

“You know what, fuck you.”

***

Eddie wakes up two days later.

Without any hesitation, Richie shoots out of his chair and demands to see him. 

The doctors let him, and when Richie turns back to see who wants to go with him, he realizes that none of the others are standing.

“It’s you,” Mike says, with a small smile. 

“Good luck,” Ben adds.

“Shit,” Richie says, but he goes.

And, well.

That must be character development.

***

Eddie’s got fucking cannula, and there’s a huge swath of bandages across his cheek where his knife wound is. He looks fucking awful, but also incredibly ridiculous. 

“You look fucking awful and incredibly ridiculous,” Richie says, before he can even think about it.

God. Fucking. Fuck his trashmouth.

“Beep-beep, Richie,” Eddie says, but he’s got a tired smile that automatically makes his eyes all twinkly. Richie feels his knees kinda go weak, which is just. Fucking unfair. He’s attached to medical equipment and five foot nothing, he’s not allowed to--make Richie feel fucking weak.

Richie sits down in the armchair next to Eddie, and reaches for Eddie’s hand. Eddie lets him take it, doesn’t say anything. It’s a bit strange. Richie traces a circle around the back of Eddie’s hand, and Eddie just. Lets him.

Richie clears his throat, and says, “So I’ve got this thing that I--,” at the same time that Eddie says, “I need to say something.”

Richie glances up. “What?”

Eddie shrugs. “I need to tell you that I--”

“No, wait, hold up,” Richie says. “I’ve got something first, and it’s kind of...really important, so not to just--but I need you to hear this from me--”

“Wait, why do you get to go first, I’m the one who fucking almost died, I deserve--”

_ “Exactly,” _ Richie breathes out, and it’s so serious that Eddie actually shuts up for once. It’s a miracle. “You don’t know, Eds. What it’s been like. I, I had to get tranquilized when you came to the hospital because I...look, before anything else, please let me just tell you this, because I might still lose you, but as long as you’re alive, that’s all that I care about.”

“I think I know,” Eddie says softly.

Richie’s head snaps up. “What?”

“I mean, I know exactly what it’s like. When you got caught up in the deadlights--when no one else could save you, I knew that I had to. No matter what it cost.”

“It almost cost  _ you, _ ” Richie says.

“And  _ you _ almost died,” Eddie says.

“What the fuck, who the fuck is in the hospital bed--”

“I’m in love with you,” Eddie says.

“What the  _ fuck, _ ” Richie says, leaning forward and pinching the bridge of his nose. His glasses almost slide off his face, but he shoves them back so far he can feel a red spot forming where his frames slammed against his face.

“What?” Eddie says, and has the audacity to sound  _ offended. _

“I was gonna fucking say it first,” Richie says. “You don’t understand, I went through this entire--thing, and I realized it, and then you fucking woke up, and now--”

Richie pauses. “Wait,” Richie says. 

“Yes,” Eddie says.

“I’m in love with you,” Richie says.

“Good,” Eddie sighs out, but Richie’s not done yet.

“And you’re in love with me,” Richie says. “So you’re not--angry, about me being in love with you.”

Eddie scowls. “Why the fuck would I be angry--”

“But you’re married.”

“And about to get a divorce,” Eddie says.

Richie gapes. “There’s nothing--we’ve got each other.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says quietly, and this time, a small smile pushes up at the corners of his mouth. It’s fucking adorable. “We do.”

“Shit,” Richie says, “Kiss me.”

And Eddie does.

***

It’s a strange thing, to wake up next to the love of your life.

It’s not even a romantic way to wake up. Eddie’s alarm is blaring  _ so loudly, _ because there’s a bunch of moving boxes in the new apartment and, “We’ve gotta be unpacked by the time we meet up with Bill and Audra!” which is a deadline that makes no sense and Richie’s  _ told him so, _ it’s their second day in the apartment and they’re meeting Bill and Audra at nine so of course they can sleep in, but Eddie insisted and now Richie’s all groggy and sleep deprived as Eddie starts banging around loudly in the apartment.

But still. Despite fucking--everything. Despite the bandages still wrapped around Eddie’s torso, and the gruesome red scar carved into Eddie’s cheek. Despite Richie’s nightmare about Adrian Mellon last night, leaving him gasping for air at two a.m. And despite Eddie, now yelling at Richie to get up even though he’s been in bed only  _ two extra minutes-- _

It feels lighter. And it feels like Richie’s breathing in sunlight.

“Rich,” Eddie calls from the kitchen, “Did you fucking--did you carve _‘R + E’_ into the leg of our kitchen table? Did you think I wouldn’t  _ notice? _ Get over here, I hate you so much--yes, it’s fucking romantic, but--are you still in bed?  _ Rich. _ ”

Richie cackles, gets out of bed, plants a kiss on Eddie’s mouth, which, as it turns out, is the most effective way to shut him up. Who would’ve thought.

And he gets to work, unpacking boxes, for Eddie.

**Author's Note:**

> hello!
> 
> I've got a million other things to be doing. I promise I'll get back to work, I just--
> 
> I'm a huge fan of Bill Hader, and I'm mesmerized by his work. His performance in IT was wonderful, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. So. Shit, here we are.
> 
> Maybe one day I'll do an Eddie version? Maybe not, though. Do y'all ever just...need to say something, and then it's said, and you don't feel that push anymore?
> 
> Yikes, I sound pretentious. Let's backtrack. Yeah, I don't feel that either. I'm, like...really cool.
> 
> Said the fanfiction writer who's trying to break her habit of writing fanfiction.
> 
> Okay cool, thanks, bye! 
> 
> But actually, what I meant to say, was: I hope you like it, and I hope I stayed true to form. A lot of times, my POV characters sound a lot more like me than like themselves, so I'm always on the lookout for that. I hope no one was too out-of-character, considering.
> 
> Also: If you liked this, please check out my [website](https://muldoonstories.com/) for more stories. Also, I just made a [twitter](https://twitter.com/allierowell2/). Cards on the table, it's under a pseudonym because I'm a weirdo, but please talk to me on there ! Promise I'm nicer on there than I am on here, haha.


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